Haven Magic (33 page)

Tomkin stared at him for several long seconds. His hand, which held the knife, wanted to cut them all. But he could not, due to the pouch that hung like a slave’s collar around his neck. He hissed vexedly.

“Companionship,” he said at last. “Yes. I will partake of that.”

Dando dared a fluttering smile. “Will you join us in festival then, this lovely eve?”

“No,” Tomkin said. “Instead,
thee
shall join
me
. We will work our charms upon the town nearby. The River Folk have offended me personally. I have declared an imbalance, and it must be settled.”

“Tonight?” asked Dando. “We have not done a raid on a town for so very long. Perhaps another—” Dando broke off with a squeak, as Tomkin’s knife pressed closer. A thin pink line appeared upon his skinny throat.

“Yes!” said Dando instantly. “Tonight would be excellent! I promise and do hereby swear: I will aid thee to make this night a special memory for the River Folk.”

Tomkin nodded finally and gave them all a final, snarling curl of his lips. He meant it as a smile, but such expressions were not natural to him. He removed the blade from Dando’s throat and the throng relaxed.

The pipes and the fiddles immediately began to play again. The colored wisps rose up and circled, brightening their glow in tune with the lighter mood. Everyone cheered and sang—except for Tomkin, who stood grumpily on the outer shore of the island.

Dando threw his arm around Tomkin and gave him a conspiratorial wink. “You had me going there for a moment, brother! You know, I could use a fellow like you at my side.”

“Remove thy skinny fingers, or I’ll have that hand off,” Tomkin replied.

Dando’s hand vanished, but his smile broadened. “Sorry! Just trying to be friendly, you understand?”

“No,” Tomkin answered, staring with slitted eyes. “We shall go now.”

“Where?”

“To North End.”

“Oh yes, that,” said Dando, looking annoyed. He sighed. “It will take most of the night, will it not?”

“Until dawn, I should think,” Tomkin said.

Dando looked toward the party wistfully. There were Wee Folk maids there, and Dando obviously loathed leaving them. Suddenly, he brightened.

“Everyone! Everyone, may I have your attention please?”

Tomkin looked after Dando in irritation. What kind of delay would this weasel attempt now?

“I have a boon for you all,” Dando said, throwing his voice suddenly downward into a low, conspiratorial tone. “We shall raid this town near us. We shall do as we have not done in two centuries! The Pact has fallen, and we need no longer cavort amongst lonely trees on swampy isles! Let’s do as our elders did before us, as those who are aged may still remember. Let us
play
—with the River Folk serving as our toys!”

The Wee Folk considered his words with glassy eyes and waxy skins shining in the night. Suddenly, with a whoop, they began to bound into the air and shouted together: “Yes! Yes! Yes, we shall
play
!”

Within minutes, a troop of Wee Folk were bounding toward North End. They giggled, flipped and twisted in mid-air as they went. When they reached the sleeping village, they quieted and went about their tricks and mischief as stealthily and quickly as they could.

Chapter Twelve

The Marsh

Brand and his comrades awoke to a gloomy marsh morning. The sun was a red disk that could not burn through the mist rising from the swamp that surrounded North End. After groaning and climbing out of bed shortly after dawn, the group all ate a dull breakfast of watercress and fish that tasted of grit. When the complained about the poor fare, they learned there had been a rash of small tricks and hexes performed during the night. Cows had gone dry, whole wracks of smoked fish had been stolen and spoiled. One woman even claimed that her child had been replaced by a changeling, but Myrrdin, after a very serious inspection of the squalling child, pronounced that it was only a mild case of rickets. He prescribed a remedy of acidic fruits and by ten o’clock they were ready to depart.

“It is well known that the merlings have a hidden stronghold in Old Hob’s Marsh outside North End,” Myrrdin said. “It is there that I propose to parlay with them.”

The others, rather unenthusiastically, agreed to accompany him. Brand was silently thankful that Jak had not come with them, as he doubted that his brother would have readily agreed to doing anything with merlings that didn’t involve killing some of them.

They purchased marshshoes for the journey, but decided to head into the backwaters of the marsh by poling up the slow waterways on their skiff, rather than going in by foot. Myrrdin cut and fashioned a parlay staff of hickory, with three long ribbons attached, two green and one white. This universal symbol of diplomatic intentions was fixed to the prow of the skiff, where the three ribbons wafted in the slow, dank breezes of the marsh. Brand wondered whether the merlings were sophisticated enough to even recognize the parlay staff. Modi commented that the thing would only encourage attack by stating the group’s probable lack of weapons.

After sailing upstream on the Berrywine into the entrance of a wide slow tributary, the skiff soon lost its wind and had to be poled. Gray-green reeds and lilies clustered around the boat, clinging to the prow and to their poles. Heavy frogs made odd, croaking cries and plopped in the water as they approached.

Brand and Corbin manned the poles in the prow and were soon sweating profusely despite the cool mists. In the stern, Gudrin and Myrrdin debated the relative natures of the Wee Folk, comparing one variety to another. Brand decided it was a good moment to talk to his cousin about recent events. “I can tell that you hate all the Wee Folk, now,” he said.

Corbin glanced at him, his face grim. He made no reply.

“Dando didn’t kill Sam.”

“No, Dando didn’t kill Sam,” said Corbin. “But he did mock my brother in death. He toyed with his corpse. He played an evil prank.”

Brand nodded. For all Corbin’s usually easy-going nature, he wasn’t one to forgive a real hurt. “I’m sure that if the little monster had danced upon Jak’s head, I would feel the same. But I do hope that your spirit and nature aren’t changed forever by this. I would miss the old jolly Corbin.”

They poled on in silence for a time, and it seemed to Brand that the marsh was becoming increasingly still and cold. He shivered as the cool mists of the swamp stole into his cloak and chilled the sweat on his skin.

“It’s just that—” broke in Corbin, suddenly. “—it’s just that everything seems so wrong, now.” He heaved a great sigh. “I don’t know. My home was burned and my brother killed. It’s difficult to accept that the stories of olden times have come to be realities again. It seems unfair, somehow, that a week ago the world was perfect.”

“Ah, but it wasn’t,” said Brand. “Recall the Dark Rider and the strange winter full of rainbows and all the rumors from the borders of the Haven. Myrrdin was late, everything felt wrong. All the evidence was there, but we refused to see it. We knew what was coming, we could feel it.”

Corbin nodded. “Yes, I admit that I saw and felt strange things. Then, of course, they seemed minor and inconsequential. I only wonder what we could have done differently.”

“Nothing,” Brand said flatly. He could see the ugly head of self-recrimination rearing up, and he wanted to kill it right away before Corbin found a way to blame himself for Sam’s death.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Because we can’t go back and change it. Things were as they were then, and therefore they had to happen the way that they did. All we can do is learn from it and thus alter the future.”

“Hmm,” said Corbin. “I thought I was the thinker in this group…”

Brand laughed aloud, an alien sound in the silent cold mists, but he was glad to do it. Corbin had not made a joke of any kind for days.

Corbin glanced back at Myrrdin and Gudrin. Brand followed his gaze and they both eyed Gudrin’s backpack with curiosity. “So, you are to bear one of the Color Jewels,” whispered Corbin. “You’ll have more magic on you than most of the Faerie!”

“Jealous?” asked Brand with a smile, not wanting his cousin’s improved mood to falter.

“Me? Ha!” said Corbin. Then he lowered his voice to a bare hiss that Brand could hardly catch. “I’m not the jealous one.”

Brand glanced back toward Modi, who was busy sharpening his weapon with a wetstone and cloth. He nodded, as if to himself, but he knew that Corbin caught the gesture. They had known one another too long, and been involved in so many youthful secrets, that their communication went far beyond words. Often when hunting or working the River or hiding something from Corbin’s parents, they could move together with just a nod, working as a team with a single purpose in mind.

Brand wondered at their connection. He had always been more in tune with Corbin than anyone, even more than Jak, his own brother. Perhaps the fact that Jak was older and had far greater responsibilities made the difference.

Brand was jolted out of his reveries when the skiff bumped into something. He stumbled forward, but was too much of a boatsman to be thrown overboard, even when surprised.

“What is it?”

“Some kind of rope,” muttered Corbin.

“Rope?” shouted Myrrdin from the stern. He sprang up and ran lightly forward. Leaning between the two heavier river-boys, he thrust his staff down into the muck and heaved up. With an expression of disgust, Brand reached into the green slimy water and helped him. Soon a rope, encrusted with gray-green growths, rose above the waters. It dripped and steamed and felt like a giant worm.

“Not just a rope!” said Myrrdin, pointing out the twisted lines of cord that hung down from the rope at even intervals. “It is a net!”

Brand released the thing and it slapped back down in the stinking waters. “We can go over it. But why is it here?”

Myrrdin shrugged. “It’s a barrier, I have no doubt.”

“Not much of a barrier against a flat-bottomed craft,” remarked Corbin.

Myrrdin waved his staff in the air. The river-boys ducked a spray of muddy splatter. “No, no! Not to stop boats. Since when do merlings use boats?”

“You mean the net is to stop merlings?” asked Brand. He cast his eyes about the marsh with greater concern.

“Certainly. The tribes aren’t all friendly to one another, you know. It’s a good thing for you River Folk that they aren’t, too. They’d give you much more trouble if they were organized into a single kingdom.”

“Do you think they know that we’re here?” asked Brand.

“Of course! They’ve known since the moment we turned into their part of the marsh, I suspect. I’m certain they have their eyes on us right now.”

In response, Brand and Corbin both hunkered down in the skiff. They gripped their poles like weapons.

“Why have they not attacked?” boomed Modi. Brand looked over his shoulder to see the hulking Kindred sitting at the center of the skiff, his battleaxe across his thick knees. He scanned the shifting mists around them for signs of any threat.

Again, Myrrdin shrugged. “Perhaps they are curious, or they respect the parlay symbol,” he said. “Or perhaps they simply aren’t ready yet.”

As no bulging pair of submerged eyes showed themselves, they soon relaxed and worked the skiff over the barrier. They proceeded deeper into the marsh with more caution. Brand spoke less and shivered more. Often he wished he had Jak with his crossbow at his side. After a long day of work and tension, the sunlight began to falter. They found a relatively dry, sandy island, and decided to camp for the night.

* * *

Tomkin had enjoyed the experience of working with his fellows on a common goal. He had rarely known companionship of any kind. After a night of pranks and snickers, he felt something had changed within his heart. They had played every trick they’d known and many they’d only heard about upon the hapless marshmen while they slept in their moist beds. By dawn there was hardly an edible substance in the entire village the Wee Folk had not sampled and then spoiled. They had considered firing the town, but decided against it. Sorrow and grief were not as amusing as surprise and helpless rage. They wanted to impress the River Folk, to plague and harass them—not kill them. Where would be fun in that? Who would rebuild and be waiting to be tricked again the next time the Folk wanted a party?

The throng of them left just as dawn pinked the skies, as was the way of their people. Everyone went their separate ways, with nothing left behind other than a wavering reed in the marshland to attest to their passing. Tomkin was left wondering the next day about Dando and the others. The Folk had feted Dando, and seemed to hold him in the highest regard. How was it that Dando seemed to warrant a vaunted spot among his kind, while Tomkin was unworthy of their spittle?

After rubbing his chin thoughtfully, standing all the while on a farmer’s barn roof, he heard a voice shout up at him. The gazed down into the yard to see the white-haired farmer walking up from the house with two pails. No doubt, he planned to do some milking. Tomkin grinned at him.

“Hey there, get off my roof, you!” shouted the farmer.

Tomkin bowed, an unfamiliar affectation he’d learned from his Folk the night before. He did it with exaggerated movements, making the gesture mocking and insincere. “Be my guest, sirrah!” he shouted down from the roof. “Milk them well, with my blessing!”